Hearts in Atlantis(17)

Then his mother was in the open doorway, looking from her son to Ted and back to her son again, her eyes assessing. 'So here you are after all,' she said. 'My goodness, Bobby, didn't you hear me calling?'

'You were up here before I got a chance to say boo, Mom.'

She snorted. Her mouth made a small, meaningless smile - her automatic social smile. Her eyes went back and forth between the two of them, back and forth, looking for something out of place, something she didn't like, something wrong. 'I didn't hear you come in from outdoors.'

'You were asleep on your bed.'

'How are you today, Mrs Garfield?' Ted asked.

'Fine as paint.' Back and forth went her eyes. Bobby had no idea what she was looking for, but that expression of dismayed guilt must have left his face. If she had seen it, he would know already; would know that she knew.

'Would you like a bottle of pop?' Ted asked. 'I have rootbeer. It's not much, but it's cold.'

'That would be nice,' Liz said. 'Thanks.' She came all the way in and sat down next to Bobby at the kitchen table. She patted him absently on the leg, watching Ted as he opened his little fridge and got out the rootbeer. 'It's not hot up here yet, Mr Brattigan, but I guarantee you it will be in another month. You want to get yourself a fan.'

'There's an idea.' Ted poured rootbeer into a clean glass, then stood in front of the fridge holding the glass up to the light, waiting for the foam to go down. To Bobby he looked like a scientist in a TV commercial, one of those guys obsessed with Brand X and Brand Y and how Rolaids consumed fifty-seven times its own weight in excess stomach acid, amazing but true.

'I don't need a full glass, that will be fine,' she said a little impatiently. Ted brought the glass to her, and she raised it to him. 'Here's how.' She took a swallow and grimaced as if it had been rye instead of rootbeer. Then she watched over the top of the glass as Ted sat down, tapped the ash from his smoke, and tucked the stub of the cigarette back into the corner of his mouth.

'You two have gotten thicker than thieves,' she remarked. 'Sitting here at the kitchen table, drinking rootbeer - cozy, thinks I! What've you been talking about today?'

'The book Mr Brautigan gave me,' Bobby said. His voice sounded natural and calm, a voice with no secrets behind it. 'Lord of the Flies. I couldn't figure out if the ending was happy or sad, so I thought I'd ask him.'

'Oh? And what did he say?'

'That it was both. Then he told me to consider it.'

Liz laughed without a great deal of humor. 'I read mysteries, Mr Brattigan, and save my consideration for real life. But of course I'm not retired.'

'No,' Ted said. 'You are obviously in the very prime of life.'

She gave him her flattery-will-get-you-nowhere look. Bobby knew it well.

'I also offered Bobby a small job,' Ted told her. 'He has agreed to take it . . . with your permission, of course.'

Her brow furrowed at the mention of a job, smoothed at the mention of permission. She reached out and briefly touched Bobby's red hair, a gesture so unusual that Bobby's eyes widened a little. Her eyes never left Ted's face as she did it. Not only did she not trust the man, Bobby realized, she was likely never going to trust him. 'What sort of job did you have in mind?'

'He wants me to - '

'Hush,' she said, and still her eyes peered over the top of her glass, never leaving Ted.

Td like him to read me the paper, perhaps in the afternoons,' Ted said, then explained how his eyes weren't what they used to be and how he had worse problems every day with the finer print. But he liked to keep up with the news - these were very interesting times, didn't Mrs Garfield think so? - and he liked to keep up with the columns, as well, Stewart Alsop and Walter Winchell and such. Winchell was a gossip, of course, but an interesting gossip, didn't Mrs Garfield agree?

Bobby listened, increasingly tense even though he could tell from his mother's face and posture - even from the way she sipped her rootbeer - that she believed what Ted was telling her. That part of it was all right, but what if Ted went blank again? Went blank and started babbling about low men in yellow coats or the tails of kites hanging from telephone wires, all the time gazing off into space?

But nothing like that happened. Ted finished by saying he also liked to know how the Dodgers were doing - Maury Wills, especially - even though they had gone to L. A. He said this with the air of one who is determined to tell the truth even if the truth is a bit shameful. Bobby thought it was a nice touch.

'I suppose that would be fine,' his mother said (almost grudgingly, Bobby thought). 'In fact it sounds like a plum. I wish / could have a plum job like that.'

'I'll bet you're excellent at your job, Mrs Garfield.'

She flashed him her dry flattery-won't-work-with-me expression again. 'You'll have to pay him extra to do the crossword for you,' she said, getting up, and although Bobby didn't understand the remark, he was astonished by the cruelty he sensed in it, embedded like a piece of glass in a marshmallow. It was as if she wanted to make fun of Ted's failing eyesight and his intellect at the same time; as if she wanted to hurt him for being nice to her son. Bobby was still ashamed at deceiving her and frightened that she would find out, but now he was also glad . . . almost viciously glad. She deserved it. 'He's good at the crossword, my Bobby.'